thinkbroadband

11,000 premises in the next phase of Hampshire superfast roll-outs
Wednesday 23 July 2014 12:03:23 by
Andrew Ferguson

The next phase of the Superfast Hampshire roll-out has been announced, with the 11,000 homes and
businesses in the latest phase leading towards the contracted goal of getting a
superfast broadband service to 90% of premises in the county. Given that the
commercial roll-outs cover some 620,000 premises across the county the 11,000
of this phase of the BDUK roll-out looks small, but will be a very important
change for those who benefit.

As with other areas inclusion of an area does not mean 100% coverage will be
reached in the area, and some places may already be partly covered by the
commercial roll-out or a cabinet via an earlier phase. Also the phases can be
fluid, e.g. it is feasible that a cabinet that part of the first phase may be
delivered later than one in the third phase if there are delays that occur,
e.g. delays while waiting for permission to dig up a road to put in a power
feed or clear a blocked duct.

Looking at Sway in particular we believe that of the eight cabinets on the
exchange, cabinets 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 are in the plans to get a FTTC service. Of
course it is possible that the other cabinets and the small amount of Exchange
Only lines may get addressed at a later date.

"The roll out of superfast broadband is right on track and I expect at least
95 per cent of homes and businesses in Hampshire will be able to access these
services by 2017. Coupled with the recent announcement that Hampshire secured
£1.2m to explore innovative solutions to take superfast broadband to some of
the more remote and hardest to reach places in the county, we hope to see these
services being available to even more of Hampshire’s residents. The social and
economic benefits of having access to superfast broadband is huge with
businesses being able to manage their accounts online, the less mobile being
able to order food shopping to their doors and school children being able to
research homework, to name just a few. This not only tackles social isolation
but has potential to grow our economy in the South, providing more jobs and
opportunities."

Leader of Hampshire County Council, Councillor Roy Perry

The 95% target in the above quote is the new target that will make use of
the £9.2m the local council has earmarked for the Superfast Extension Scheme
and the Government is offering £9.2m of extra funding for Hampshire, Portsmouth
and Southampton. Hampshire County Council actually completed an Open Market
Review in January 2014 for the period 2015 - 2017 so appears to be ahead of the
curve for moving from the 90% to 95% target.

Update 24th July Hampshire County Council has been in touch
with some updates, namely that the Government is putting in £9.2m towards the
extension project rather than the £8.74m originally announced. Also that the
area of the Hampshire BDUK project is a total of 594,000 premises, where
approximately 469,000 are covered commercially. The 90% project currently
underway is set to bring superfast services to 59,000 premises. This figure is
lower than that of the BT press release because we believe the council is
referring to the footprint of the project, which excludes the cities of
Portsmouth and Southampton. The nice bonus bit of information is a weekly
updated list of cabinets that are live is available. While we originally suspected
that the 'current signups' layer on the Hampshire map was referring to orders,
we have learn it refers actually to the expressions of interest for more
information for when fibre based services arrive in an area.

Maps of the council projects are often criticised and the Hampshire website appears to have a better than most map, which
while not showing exactly which cabinets are in each phase it does make viewing
the areas much easier and also plots the registered levels of interest in each
area.

thinkbroadband.com estimate of superfast coverage in Hampshire,
based on the assumption every green street cabinet offers FTTC and/or cable
broadband.

Authority

% at 30 Mbps or faster

% at 24 Mbps or faster

% cable present

% Exchange Only lines

% needing extra USC help

Combined Authorites

90.2%

92.3%

53.8%

3.3%

1.9%

City of Portsmouth

99.2%

99.3%

94.6%

1%

<0.1%

City of Southampton

94.2%

95.7%

35.3%

2.8%

1.7%

Hampshire County

88.1%

90.6%

50.5%

3.8%

2.2%

Our estimates based on a pure FTTC and ignoring Exchange Only lines suggest
that for Hampshire County Council to hit the 95% with access to a superfast
service in 2017 some extra work beyond simply enabling every green street
cabinet for a VDSL2 service will be needed. This is why various projects are
using some FTTP roll-out tactically, i.e. small numbers so that the cost is
managed and given the political pressure this is expedient. I am sure all those
who follow the broadband campaigning trail would love a lot more FTTP in these
roll-outs, but given budget and time constraints this seems unlikely.

Given the list of 56 cabinets that are live and delivering a FTTC service
via the project in this Hampshire, we estimate that 80% can get superfast
speeds (30 Mbps and faster) and another 5 to 9% can get 24 Mbps to 30 Mbps
speeds.

Posted by
taras over 2 years ago
"Lymington, Lyndhurst, Milford-On-Sea" where mostly done on phase 2 (12a) with some fill in with (12b) cabinet work on sway is being done now (next 2 weeks).

The overlap in phases now is interesting and probably needed for extra work

Not sure about mobilebb but i know the new site has been up since late june!

Posted by
Blackmamba over 2 years ago
Today Cabs are Standing with power in Liphook,Headley Down, Exchange Area,s fibre will be connected via Hindhead to Haslemere GSC these Cabs have been standing for three weeks. One Cab 6 Headley down is open for service but not advertised.

Posted by
razorhazor over 2 years ago
Wish they would sort out the Exchange Only lines in West Wellow :-(

Posted by
Blackmamba over 2 years ago
Hi West Wellow. In Surrey the EO lines are being done last but if you watch your Local Exchange you may find that they will erect a new Cab outside of the exchange grounds plus a new FTTC. In Surrey there is a set group doing it a few have already been cabled but not advertised yet for service.

Posted by
nickweavers over 2 years ago
Anyone know about plans for EO lines in Totton? No sign of any cabinet outside exchange.

Posted by
Blackmamba over 2 years ago
As Totton Exchange (14k lines ) I would think the EO lines will be transfered latter in the project so you will not see Cabs for a while I hope you are lucky. It will also determine how maney EO lines are on Totton Exchange plus the local requests for Infinity.

Posted by
Blackmamba over 2 years ago
Cabs are being fitted in selborne they will be fibred cabled to Alton work in progress

Posted by
cloudwin over 2 years ago
Maps may be better than most but still not great. Been trying to 'express an interest' for a year, but postcode is not accepted despite being allocated in 2012 and active since June 2013. The website says they've used 2014 postcode data for their review, but still missing a 90 home development (believe the Openreach infrastructure was planned before FTTC & FTTP were offered).

Any idea how to get or when Openreach to re-evaluate the commercial viability of the local cabinet (Winchester Cab 34)